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Groups sue over more
permit OKs
By Alyson Matley
amatley@keynoter.com
Citizens'
Coalition and Last Stand challenge rules
Two
Keys environmental groups on Friday filed a legal challenge against
Monroe County, Marathon and the state, claiming they have not fulfilled
past legal obligations in everything from hurricane evacuation to land
acquisition.
Last Stand and the Florida Keys Citizens
Coalition filed the petition for an administrative hearing in
Tallahassee to challenge recent rulemaking by the state that allows
unincorporated Monroe and Marathon more building permits than previous
years.
In an agreement hammered out this spring between
local officials and the state Department of Community Affairs,
unincorporated Monroe would receive 197 permit allocations annually, an
increase over the 158 currently allotted.
Marathon is
now allowed 24 permit allocations yearly, five for affordable housing.
Under the agreement reached with the state, the 24 would increase to 30,
and 65 additional credits previously allocated but not used would be
restored.
The rule also allows the county to regain 181
building allocations that had been taken in penalty when the county did
not comply with state mandates.
"Now [the state] is rewarding Monroe County
officials for refusing to obey their own comprehensive plan as well as
state oversight," said Ed Davidson, chairman of the Florida Keys
Citizens' Coalition. "By giving an increasing number of annual permits,
they're being rewarded. Not only that, but the state is giving back past
penalty permits that were reduced because local officials failed to live
up to their responsibility."
"Overall, what
this is about is that government, the state and local government has,
for at least 20 years, put off the tough decisions," said Richard Grosso,
the attorney who filed the suit. Grosso is general counsel of the
Environmental and Land Use Law Center at Nova Southeastern University.
"The answer at every critical juncture has been,
Let's do another study. When the state's own reports show the Keys have
exceeded any safe limits for growth, its time for somebody to stand up
and react to this crisis."
Monroe County Mayor Murray Nelson was
instrumental in negotiating the deal with the state that he says will
bring in the money crucial to protect vital habitat and fulfill state
mandates. This suit, he says, could undo all that.
"All the things we've accomplished in
the last few months," said Nelson, "And now they're going to impede
that."
Grosso says that's not the case.
"That's just not true at all," he said. "It's
complete rhetoric. This [suit] doesn't hold up a dime's worth of funding
for land acquisition or wastewater or anything like that."
What it is designed to do, he says, is slow
rampant growth in the Keys.
"This isn't just the environmental community," he
said. "[The Carrying Capacity Study] is a study by the state and federal
government saying we've developed too much. We are asking that the state
implement that Carrying Capacity Study by making the necessary changes
to habitat protection rules."
The federally funded Carrying Capacity Study was
unveiled in 2002. The $6 million study was aimed at providing planners a
tool to control future growth in the Keys. It was perceived as useful
but containing shortfalls. |
